Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Monday October 01, 2012 @07:05PM
from the chechens-for-putin dept.

RockDoctor writes "A recent paper published in PNAS describes statistical techniques for clearly displaying the presence of two types of electoral fraud (PDF) — 'incremental fraud' (stuffing of ballot boxes containing genuine votes with ballots for the winning party) and 'extreme fraud' (reporting completely contrived numbers, typically 100% turnout for a vote-counting region, with 100% voting for the winning party). While the techniques would require skill with statistical software to apply in real time, the graphs produced in the paper provide tools for the interested non-statistician to monitor an election 'live.' Examples are discussed with both 'normal' elections, fraud by the techniques mentioned, and cases of genuine voter inhomogeneity. Other types of fraud, such as gerrymandering and inhibiting the registration of minority voters, are not considered."

Gerrymandering is not exactly fraud. Intentionally drawing lines to create voting districts in a way such that it favors one political party over another is perfectly legal (although obviously not desired). Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative and have a say in the political process.

Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative and have a say in the political process.

Why is this considered good? Do you believe that "Blacks and other minorities" can't succeed without help?

If I'm not mistaken, Barack Obama is a "black or other minority" and he won in a country not "consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities".

If there is a minority (ethnic or otherwise) with interests differing from that of the majority, that minority may be underrepresented in representative systems. If the minority happens to be geographically localized, drawing electoral boundaries appropriately can restore them to a proportionate amount of political power.

The OP possibly could have chosen his words better, but I don't think he meant any harm.

The problem with that argument is that it is not-so-subtly segregationist - let the minority have their own small ghetto where they run things, but keep them out of our (much bigger) turf where we do as we want. SAR had a similar arrangement with bantustans during apartheid.

Thing is, if you have an ethnic minority with interests profoundly different from the majority, that's already the sign of a very fundamental flaw in that society, which is not going to be fixed by token gestures

The problem with that argument is that it is not-so-subtly segregationist - let the minority have their own small ghetto where they run things, but keep them out of our (much bigger) turf where we do as we want. SAR had a similar arrangement with bantustans during apartheid.

Thing is, if you have an ethnic minority with interests profoundly different from the majority, that's already the sign of a very fundamental flaw in that society, which is not going to be fixed by token gestures

Actually, that isn't how it turns out at all: there is no "ghetto" established, as the laws that the prevailing governing body passes will apply to the entire incorporated area (city, county, state, whatever). The key difference is that without the gerrymandering, there will be no voice in that governing body to represent the extreme minority's interests at all. So it's actually anti-segregationist, since it gives the minority a stronger voice than they would have otherwise.

The minority should not need a voice to speak for them in the first place. They should be citizens just like any others, with same rights and needs as far as their interaction with the government goes. If they're not, that in itself is segregationalist - it's creating a division along ethnic (or other similarly decorative) lines where none should rationally exist. It only happens when either the government is deliberately discriminating against them (in which case a single representative is not going to do anything useful, and is little more than token gesture), or because that group of people is intentionally segregating themselves from the rest of society, excluding outsiders from their power structure - which is a bad thing and should not be encouraged.

Why would you need a different set of needs based solely on your ethnicity, though?

I'm not saying that people shouldn't disagree, and certainly proportional representation is far better than FPTP to reflect what the society actually needs. I just don't see why political differences have to go along ethnic lines - and especially why that should be promoted as natural.

Actually, that isn't how it turns out at all: there is no "ghetto" established, as the laws that the prevailing governing body passes will apply to the entire incorporated area (city, county, state, whatever). The key difference is that without the gerrymandering, there will be no voice in that governing body to represent the extreme minority's interests at all. So it's actually anti-segregationist, since it gives the minority a stronger voice than they would have otherwise.

That's a horrible way to fix the problem. It's better to have a proportional system, where parties are awarded seats in the government/state/county in proportion to the popular vote. The problem only occurs in winner-takes-all systems in the first place.

If we accept gerrymandering to give certain minorities a vote, we're also giving politicians an excuse for abusing the system to further their own power.

And yes, it's segregationist. Segregation means you separate ethnic groups. Having good intentions or giv

If there is a minority (ethnic or otherwise) with interests differing from that of the majority, that minority may be underrepresented in representative systems.

Only if you use winner-take-all voting with no adjusting, and no country would do that, that would ensure a two-party system which would no represent the best interest of the public. Oh, wait....

Or, in other words, fix the problem, not one of the symptoms. The problem is that winner-take-all is not going to be representative, and furthermore that it will encourage the forming of two huge parties, neither of which will have interests coinciding with the public.

Assume all majority people vote party X and all minorities vote party Y, both voted in equal proportions and all districts consisted of 51% majority people, party X would win 100% of the districts. Rearranging districts might end up giving party Y a majority of districts.Neither is good, as both misrepresent the votes. As long as a district system is used, votes are misrepresented as not all votes will be weighed equally.

For whatever the "intended purpose", attempts at gerrymandering can backfire. The more extreme the attempted gerrymander, the more disastrous the outcome can be (at least, in a fair election). The result can even be Tullymandering [wikimedia.org].

Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative

Whether or not this is ever "good" is debatable, to say the least.

I live in a so-called "majority-minority" district which was considered a lock for a minority candidate since its creation. The incumbent has done such a poor job that he came fairly close to losing the election in 2010. The response? They adjusted the lines to pull extra minorities into his district to ensure that would never happen again.

The message there was clear: your vote counts for nothing. The representative has already been chosen by those who set up the districts.

Let's be clear... it is, in fact, fraud. It is not, however, illegal. There are plenty of hateful and immoral things, especially when it comes to elections, that are not illegal. Gerrymandering is clearly one of them. If anything proves beyond a doubt that your vote doesn't really count for anything and our elections are rigged, it's Gerrymandering. It's also, ironically, the reason Ron Paul is losing his district.

I think that fraud has to include some element of secrecy. Gerrymandering is not secretive, it's practiced openly, and in full public view. The voting district lines are available to anyone who wanders in to your county offices.

I have to agree with this, here in Utah they re-drew the entire state's districts for the house and congress to skew even more Republic then we already do and to especially screw Jim Matheson. It made all the local news, papers, and even the local NPR but no one I knew hardly gave a shit.

Gerrymandering can be used for good too such as creating voting districts consisting of mostly Blacks or other minorities so they can elect a (favored minority) representative and have a say in the political process.

You can get the good things from potential gerrymanders without the bad parts. Instead of dividing into districts, use a proportional representation system where people vote for lists of candidates. That way, if minorities prefer to vote for other minorities, they can. If they prefer to vote based on party, they can. If they prefer to vote on some other basis, they can. Essentially this lets voters choose their representatives rather than letting politicians choose their voters.

Saying the voter % among minorities is up in Georgia is not the same as saying that Pennsylvania has implemented a voter ID law that requires a government issued voter ID that they don't have the capacity to issue.

Effectively a lot of voters will not be able to vote because they won't have that ID card, are not able to get it in time and NO SURPRISES, that demographic is largely Democrat, and the law was passed by Republicans.

I stand by my comment.The Republicans 1% ARE scum for undermining democracy like t

I don't:1. It's solving a problem that doesn't exist. The folks that have been pushing photo ID have been able to come up with approximately 10 cases of somebody pretending to be somebody else and casting a vote at the polls, having a significant impact on a grand total of 0 elections. If you want to cast fraudulent ballots, it's far easier to do so using absentee ballots.

2. If you require would-be voters to pay for their IDs, then this is a poll tax, which was ruled unconstitutional decades ago. If you don't, then this is an unnecessary (see point 1) expense, both for the government budget (and ultimately the people who pay taxes) and for the individuals who have to go get a free photo ID (which is only free if you don't count the transportation to the place to get it and the time to wait for it).

3. The party that pushed through these bills stated quite explicitly their purpose, namely to prevent people likely to vote for the other major party from voting. To quote a state government representative, "Voter ID, which is gonna allow ______________ to win the state of Pennsylvania, done". (I'm leaving the party name blank here to protect the guilty). Acts of these sorts are an anathema to democratic governance.

1. You say the problem doesn't exist. The problem there is, if anyone can just walk in to the poll and say, "I'm Steve Wozniak", and we never ask for any proof that they are who they say they are, how do you prove they aren't Steve Wozniak 3 days later? Add to this the well-documented voter registration quotas Acorn was running, and you have a political organization with a list of registered, fantasy voters. Photo ID, of course, means you can mess up the re

2a) You know that "free" ID you were supposed to get? Take PA, where the law was passed in the past seven months (March 2012). That "free" photo ID did not exist until late August! Up until then, they were requiring everyone to get the standard photo ID - the one that costs money and requires a higher burden of proof. Imagine your surprise when you go to PennDOT and try to get your "free" photo ID, after you manage to get a ride there (did you know that something like six counties in PA have no PennDOT facility, and another 13-ish counties have one facility open one day a week?)...only to discover that you actually do need to pay for your ID.

2b) What you need an ID for in modern society is a red herring when it comes to voting. Almost 20% of the registered voters in Philadelphia do not have a state-issued ID! Regardless of this fact, how do you define a "significant" amount of people without ID? If this law ends up preventing more legitimate votes than preventing fraudulent votes, is that significant enough for you?

Voter fraud is real, but in-person voter fraud is very rare (see 1 for why). So if the GOP is really interested in honest elections, why are they focusing on the rarest form of fraud? None of these ID laws would stop any of the documented instances of voter fraud that I have mentioned in this post - at least one of which resulted in an actual stolen election.

1. If no one can prove, or ask me to prove, that I'm not who I say I am, then what's the risk? Hey, prove the world is round. But gather no evidence. Good luck.

So, since you asked, I'd rather commit the fraud no one's going to look at - which is to say, show up at the poll, tell them I'm Snoopy Brown at 123 Any Street, show that that name/address is on the voter roll, vote, and walk away. Or hell, I can walk in, same-day register, cast a ballot that will be counted, and walk away. No one will find me, or ev

Have you ever been to Philadelphia? Having a car isn't necessarily a luxury, it's a liability when you have nowhere to park it. If you have no car, and you don't smoke, you have no need for a driver's license. Or maybe you're married and you have no license because your husband does all the driving and buys all the cigarettes and booze.

And I'm not saying that in-person fraud is exactly zero, or that the poll workers will notice. What I'm saying is that there is a much higher risk of being caught committ

The problem there is, if anyone can just walk in to the poll and say, "I'm Steve Wozniak", and we never ask for any proof that they are who they say they are, how do you prove they aren't Steve Wozniak 3 days later?

Why don't you try that and see how far you get. But you'd better do enough research to find a registered voter in the precinct you'll be voting in who isn't likely to be voting otherwise. I'll bet if you tried real hard you could cast 10 or 15 votes that way as long as you don't get caught.

In my state I have to sign my name when I vote and that signature gets compared to the signature on my voter registration. That's plenty of ID for me.

Because every time you mention Democrats or Republicans in a thread like this, it tends to deteriorate into an argument about which party cheats the most, drawing attention away from the real issue being discussed.

It's solving a problem that doesn't exist. The folks that have been pushing photo ID have been able to come up with approximately 10 cases

You contradict yourself in the very next sentence where you claim the problem does exist. It might not be a large problem, but a small problem is not a non-existent problem.

If you don't, then this is an unnecessary (see point 1) expense

So you see no difference between being able to vote and not being able to vote? That makes it something other than unnecessary.

The party that pushed through these bills stated quite explicitly their purpose, namely to prevent people likely to vote for the other major party from voting.

I see you forgot to fill in the blanks. You mean the Republicans want to pass the law to prevent Democrats from exercising certain types of electoral fraud? That does sound pretty damning when you put it that way

And need I note that most elections do not involve hundreds of millions of ballots? I don't know why people only focus on the presidential election when there are tens of thousands of elections going on during a cycle. Even if the effect is small to "zero" statistically speaking at the national level, it can still be significant in smaller elections.

4. More and more voting stations are located in suburban areas or on the edge of town to make sure only the well-off can easily get there and to cut down on the riff-raff (the poor, the elderly, the minorites working long slave-wage hours, etc.).

Coda: In Kansas, they decided in an election year - pure coincidence, I'm sure - to finally revamp the computer system for drivers licenses (and state IDs which aren't free) after years and years of delay. My first license renewal was 'lost in the mail' and only

Gerrymandering is the creative drawing of district boundaries to ensure a desired outcome. It's not a good thing, but it's hardly fraud, since there's no disconnect between who got the votes and who got elected.

Intimidating voters is an evil thing — using extortion to influence an election. But once again, not fraud.

Not all evils are the same, which is why we have different laws to cover stealing from a bank with a forged check and stealing from a bank with a gun.

I see they've used the recent parliamentary ('11) and presidential ('12) Russian elections as one of the inputs, and they do indeed show some nice graphs there. Well, good to know that at least there is something good for science coming out of that mess.

Seriously. The whole point of the law is to make sure people are only voting where they live. In Wisconsin at least, IDs for voting are free. Yet, people cry "disenfranchisement", as if somehow anyone, even someone who has no job, can somehow survive without a state issued ID.
Can someone please, without frothing at the mouth and namecalling, help me understand what the actual objections of "Wow, you should be able to prove you're voting where you live", is a problem? Especially when, see previous re:

Well the Republican house leader from Pennsylvania can help you out there:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32tF-S6K60

Even the Republican House Leader admits the law was intended to let Mitt Romney win Pen State.

They made a list of specific forms of ID that are valid and ones that are not. That list gives a heavily weighted bias to Republicans. So 15 million people need a new government ID in Republican states, those people are mostly Democrat and unaligned voters. They'll have to get this Id from governments under GOP control that haven't invested in the capacity to issue all of those IDs until after the elections.

That's enough to probably win Pen State for Mitt Romney. They know it, that's what it was intended to do. Yet the claim is of 'buses' moving fake voters from state to state. When they've investigated that claim, it's been found to be completely bogus. Misregistrations being so far below statistical significance as to be one of the more ludicrous claim Fox has made.

The purpose of an election is to determine will of the majority (or at least plurality) of the voting public.

If Alice and Bob are running against each other, and an illegal immigrant casts a ballot for Alice, then the election is biased 1 vote towards her.

But in the same scenario, if one person who was planning to vote for Bob gives up due to long lines, then the election is also biased by 1 vote towards Alice.

The two situations have roughly the same impact, and there's no rational reason to worry about one over the other. So, if you want voter ID laws, you must prove that the number of false ballots that such laws stop exceeds the number of valid ballots that are also stopped.

So where is your evidence of widespread voter fraud? You don't have any, because it doesn't even make sense to commit that style of fraud. If you wanted to steal an election, you would bribe a few dozen people to stuff ballot boxes, not a few hundred thousand to cast false ballots. There's simply no way a conspiracy of such tremendous size could be kept secret.

You must be new to politics. Fixing non-existent problems they can't prove exist is a dead give away. duh!

The complex rules and regulations on voting coming from the proponents of Voter IDs are where the true motives become clear-- the devil is in the details. Never trust a politician's summarization. Do you trust marketing claims? Probably, they hire marketing firms to sell you both.

How about this: You have a great popular video game; everybody wants it, but it includes a Sony-like DRM rootkit backdoor

Does getting the ID require that a person provide any documents that they must pay for? How hard is it for poor people to get those for free, and how much extra work do they need to do to prove they're poor enough to qualify for the free ID or ancillary documentation? Does it require that they go to a particular place during working hours to obtain it and if so does it compensate poor people for their time and travel expenses, as well as contact their employer to ensure that they are not penalized for taking that time? Does it require that they actually have a home address/proof of address in order to obtain one, and if so, how are homeless people handled? How are voters informed of the need for an ID in order to vote, and does it take into account language issues, homelessness issues, and any other obstacle to being informed that disproportionately affects poor people and minorities?

Those are very, very real problems for people who are already on the margins, and those issues act as a massive disincentive for those people to get an ID and the people behind those laws know it.

For you and me, getting an ID is nothing more than hopping in the car, going to the DMV, paying pocket change to get the ID and then being on our merry way. Our employers won't fire us for needing a couple of hours to run that errand. For someone who is on the margin, though, it can be a goddamn epic adventure through bureaucracy that ultimately is confusing, frustrating and ultimately may end in failure and come at a cost far higher than you are aware of.

I do research with participants who are below the poverty line, and believe me, the hoops my participants have to jump through and the extra effort they have to go through to even get to the point where they can jump through those hoops is staggering.

Further, the problem that voter IDs are intended to prevent is not, in fact, a problem: retail voter fraud of the sort IDs would theoretically address is pretty much nonexistent, and is completely dwarfed by wholesale vote manipulation that is either intentional or accidental.

Finally, many voter ID laws allow some forms of ID but not others, and the allowed types of IDs in those states overwhelmingly are owned by people who tend to vote more conservatively, while the disallowed ones tend to belong to people who would skew more towards the liberal demographic.

It's a bullshit issue, it costs way more money to implement than the "problem" it solves costs society and it is intended to limit turnout of those people who most need representation in our society. Anyone who is a fan of voter ID laws is, to be charitable, misinformed at best and actively seeking to disenfranchise others at worst, and they are encouraging costly government intervention where none is needed.

Disclaimer: I haven't read TFA - my PDF-reader locks up on this document for some reason.

There is one kind of fraud that can never be detected by any means, and that it to alter each vote as they are placed, i.e. identical in every way to the voter having cast his vote elsewhere. Electronic voting machines are perfect for this. A similar technique would be to point a gun at some of the voters head and make them vote a certain way.

"Suffing the ballot boxes" - reminds me of that Blackadder episode with the "rotten borough" with just one voter: Baldrick of course. When he has cast his vote the result is announced: A completely new candidate wins with over 1.000 write-in votes, and one invalid vote (Baldricks obviously) is disregarded. That was clearly a perfectly fine election with no statistical anormalies.

For example, there is very strong evidence that Scott Brown reached the US Senate as a result of election fraud. Details are in http://electiondefensealliance.org/files/BelieveIt_OrNot_100904.pdf [electionde...liance.org] That analysis compared the results in machine count jurisdictions and hand count jurisdictions. The usual disparity between hand count and machine count results (based on prior elections) runs around 0.25%. Coakley led in hand count jurisdictions by 2% and Brown in machine count jurisdictions by 5%. That is a 7% disparity. It also turns out that the company operating the machine counts was Republican-connected, and that the ballots were neither saved nor sampled to validate the accuracy of the machine counts. There are numerous ways to tamper with a machine count of paper ballots, especially in a two-person special election.

The method published in the subject paper could not pick up this kind of election fraud.

Statistics isn't about being 100%. That's the whole point of trends and probabilities. If there's around 65% voter turnout in an area, within a certain deviation, and one polling station has an 80% voter turnout, that's an anomaly. Usually anything more than 2 standard deviations out is an anomaly, statistically speaking. Nothing implies this is 100% election fraud, or even election fraud at all. It just means something different is happening there.

So what? A technique doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be useful. Which is fortunate, because few techniques are.

How is this useful?

Interesting perhaps, but not useful. The party that WON using any detectible vote fraud will not let you change anything, certainly not the outcome and probably not even vote methodology, or credential checking in future elections. In fact they probably won't give you access to voting detail numbers at all once it becomes common knowledge that such analysis is possible.

Interesting perhaps, but not useful. The party that WON using any detectible vote fraud will not let you change anything, certainly not the outcome and probably not even vote methodology, or credential checking in future elections. In fact they probably won't give you access to voting detail numbers at all once it becomes common knowledge that such analysis is possible.

Just because a party won by fraud, it doesn't mean they become dictators for life and can block every attempt to fix the system. Sooner or later another party will win, and the cheating party can't make their manipulations too obvious.

Signs of this are races that turn out to be very close within 1/2 percent as they stuff just enough to tip the result. Seen an excess of extreme close races lately? The probability of a high percentage of very close races is slim. Seeing many very close races under 1% spread is a statistical indication of rigged elections.

Signs of this are races that turn out to be very close within 1/2 percent as they stuff just enough to tip the result. Seen an excess of extreme close races lately? The probability of a high percentage of very close races is slim. Seeing many very close races under 1% spread is a statistical indication of rigged elections.

Funny, I take close races more like a sign that people are holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils. I mean, you can vote Republican for fiscal conservatism and denying civil rights, or you can vote Democratic for permissive society and economic ruin.

In the end, they're just promises anyway, both sides bring economic ruin and denial of rights, the details are who specifically won't be able to afford anything and which rights get trampled.

The OP is absolutely correct. Statistics only works if you have an unbiased sample. If you're up against smart fraudsters they'll cook the numbers to satisfy these statistical tests. Fortunately, most election riggers don't really care if people suspect they rigged the election.

You know sometimes these things do happen. Having done work with state and local government, I see things like this happening all the time.

Government employment culture is the idea on what you do wrong will hurt you, vs what you do right will promote you.So there is little effort in telling people how to do things right, and if some one makes a mistake they will keep quiet and hope they don't get caught.

You importantly raised the issue of abandoning the rule of law, which has been happening here in the USA with alarming regularity (a purist would say Lincoln was the worst first example, though you could find more before him). I wish I knew the name of it but there was a wonderful 10 minute video that explained the difference between a republic (and its literal translation as the public thing, meaning the rule of law) and how democratic republics are at risk of becoming lawless mob ruled states, as you des

I'm not sure about videos, but the Federalist Papers point specifically explain how the US Constitution prevents a mob from taking control.

The basic problem, though, is that one man's group of motivated citizens voting for what they think is best for the republic is another man's unruly uneducated mob. If you truly believe that the citizens are incapable of electing not-terrible leaders (or, for that matter, weighing evidence fairly when seated on a jury), then what you're really advocating is some form of

Or anarcho-capitalism, or minarchism, or libertarian socialism, or constitutional monarchy. There are many forms of government (or non-government, as my list belies). Heck, the Habsburgs* presided over a generally prosperous period as monarchs. And there's no inherent reason you can't have liberal policies under a monarch any more than under a democratically elected minister/parliament.

*The reason they fell was more due to external aggression than any internal problems. It is possible, for example, th

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, among other actions, which were in violation of the Constution, and illegal. Therefore, my statement is factually sound. I did not make a value judgment, just a statement of fact - many purists do indeed cite Lincoln as one of the first presidents to grossly violate the rule of law. A better question would have been, "Why?", which is what I've tried to answer here. Your attitude is really uncalled for, unconstructive, and ignorant.

The use of it to imprison Copperhead Democrats, who were publicly protesting the war, and not otherwise a threat, except to Lincoln politically, pretty fairly casts doubt, at least, on the legality of his use of it in that case. Habeas Corpus cannot seriously be expected to be legally suspended to violate first amendment rights. What do you think?

Arguments abound for both views. At least one SCOTUS member disagreed with you. Given the obvious unethical nature, and the tenuous claim to legality, I'll stand by my assertion that purists believe Lincoln acted illegally. I doubt many people could convincingly argue that Bush II or Obama have not acted illegally.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/vance4.html [lewrockwell.com]

Damn I wish I could edit. Meant to emphasize that the language around suspension clearly indicates only in case of rebellion and public safety. I can't buy for a minute that free speech being exercised qualifies either of those legal standards, hence, it was illegal (the argument in the Vance essay notwithstanding, which I think is needlessly complex, but IANACL).

The short form answer is "The Civil War", Lincoln can be considered justified by that view if you accept the argument that "The Constitution is not a suicide pact.", or his actions can be seen as going beyond what was actually necessary to prosecute the war. I've read good arguments either way.

The long answer won't fit here, and I'm not sure it exists. I've taught Root Causes of the Civil War in military OCS classes. I tend to favor an argument that Lincolns actions had more necessity behind them than is ge

His buddies must have included the entire Minnesota Supreme Court, since it was their unanimous decision that rejected his opponent's appeal. But don't let facts stop you from your right-wing conspiracy theories.

It was a violation of "equal protection under the law" because different ballots were treated differently by different voting districts. Just so happened that disqualified ballots from liberal districts were treated a lot more leniently than disqualified ballots from conservative districts.

This is all well documented. The Minnesota Supreme Court refused to intervene because they were using a high malice standard.

That doesn't make what happened right, and I highly doubt that a fair recount would have resulted in the election of Franken.

Franken won by ~225 votes. Most districts only had 10 or 20 ballots that Coleman was disputing. Is your theory that the omniscient democrats launched a state-wide conspiracy to reject a dozen Coleman votes here, two dozen there, somehow knowing that that would tip the scales?

No, you are just parroting what you have heard from your chosen masters, who have been having a temper tantrum for the better part of four years.

Is your theory that the omniscient democrats launched a state-wide conspiracy to reject a dozen Coleman votes here, two dozen there, somehow knowing that that would tip the scales?

I've heard a similar theory about casinos. That they try to get you drunk, say via free martinis, in order to get more money out of you. But who really believes that there's an omniscient casino industry out there which launched an industry-wide conspiracy to get you drunk in order to lower your inhibitions and judgment and thereby profit from it at the gaming table?

No you'd just be parroting what you heard from your chosen masters.

In the case above, all it takes for this so-called omniscience is a co

You're not making sense. Polls have nowhere near the precision required to predict the outcome of a senate race within a few hundred votes. Furthermore, you are positing that dozens of election officials all conspired to commit a fraud against the American people, which is a far cry from a few casino execs getting their customers to spend more money.

On top of that, if the Democrats have the means to cheat close elections, why only that one? There are plenty of close elections that they've lost.

Polls have nowhere near the precision required to predict the outcome of a senate race within a few hundred votes.

And they don't need to. If the polls are too close to call, then that's an indication that fraud can make the difference.

Furthermore, you are positing that dozens of election officials all conspired to commit a fraud against the American people, which is a far cry from a few casino execs getting their customers to spend more money.

That depends on whether one gets caught or not. This particular fraud seems pretty safe to commit.

On top of that, if the Democrats have the means to cheat close elections, why only that one? There are plenty of close elections that they've lost.

That election is not unique in having accusations of fraud. My view is that there are probably low levels of fraud in most elections. In addition, there looks to me to be evidence that both major parties are engaging in recent elections in larger frauds and corruption.

Does it even have to be a coDoes it even have to be a conspiracy? Can't the party members in the individual districts have tried to dispute the votes on their own initiative, without being sure it'd make a difference?nspiracy?

Exit polling is highly effective as it was being done for decades and still is in many places to detect problems; some even call elections from it and just use the paper as a kind of verification process.

But in the USA, exit polling was smeared so bad and the public so ignorant it was outlawed in no time without much resistance. There is no reason they made such a huge and unjustified move other than current or future corruption plans. I think large enough fraud schemes were at risk of exposure and that i

But in the USA, exit polling was smeared so bad and the public so ignorant it was outlawed in no time without much resistance. There is no reason they made such a huge and unjustified move other than current or future corruption plans. I think large enough fraud schemes were at risk of exposure and that is why it was killed.

However, if you can prevent people from voting, then the exit polls will match your expectations and help to legitimize your stolen election. Worked out well in Ohio in 2004.

I love how my original post has been moderated "troll" because it bothers the conservative base here on slashdot.